Summary

This module provides authentication front-ends such as
mod_auth_digest and mod_auth_basic
to authenticate users by looking up users in plain text password files.
Similar functionality is provided by mod_authn_dbm.

The AuthUserFile directive sets the name
of a textual file containing the list of users and passwords for
user authentication. File-path is the path to the user
file. If it is not absolute, it is treated as relative to the
ServerRoot.

Each line of the user file contains a username followed by
a colon, followed by the encrypted password. If the same user
ID is defined multiple times, mod_authn_file will
use the first occurrence to verify the password.

The utility htpasswd
which is installed as part of the binary distribution, or which
can be found in src/support, is used to maintain
the password file for HTTP Basic Authentication. See the
man page for more details.
In short:

Create a password file Filename with
username as the initial ID. It will prompt for
the password:

htpasswd -c Filename username

Add or modify username2 in the password file
Filename:

htpasswd Filename username2

Note that searching large text files is very
inefficient; AuthDBMUserFile should be used
instead.

If you are using HTTP Digest Authentication, the htpasswd tool is not sufficient.
You have to use htdigest
instead. Note that you cannot mix user data for Digest Authentication
and Basic Authentication within the same file.

Security

Make sure that the AuthUserFile is
stored outside the document tree of the web-server. Do
not put it in the directory that it protects.
Otherwise, clients may be able to download the
AuthUserFile.